Bainbridge Island Review

Peter Spencer to perform on First Friday

Peter Spencer brings an evening of music with Jonathan Green at the First Friday Art Walk on Feb. 1. / Photo courtesy of The Island Gallery

The Island Gallery presents an evening of music featuring Peter Spencer with Jonathan Green from 6 to 8 p.m. on First Friday, Feb. 1.

Born in Erie, Pa., Spencer began his musical career in 1968 playing harmonica in a blues band in Pittsburgh, but soon switched to solo guitar. He spent the 1970s touring North America and Europe playing early blues, jazz and ragtime. Then, in the early 1980s, he began writing songs, co-founding the Fast Folk Musician's Cooperative in Greenwich Village, N.Y., where he worked with artists like Suzanne Vega, John Gorka, Lucy Kaplanski, Cliff Eberhardt and Jack Hardy.

After graduating from The Writing Program at Columbia University in 1989, Spencer retired from performing and became a full-time music writer for magazines like Rolling Stone and Sing Out. His book "World Beat: A Listener's Guide to Contemporary World Music on CD" was published by the Chicago Review Press in 1992.

He returned to performing with the 2000 release "New Hope and Wise Virgins," followed by a series of releases beginning with an album of original and classic blues called "Nobody's Daddy" in 2005. "Handsignal," another album of original songs, followed in 2006. Later that year came "Gathering Light," an album of Christmas music for solo guitar. In 2007 he released "The Blues Concert," recorded live on Bainbridge Island, and in 2009 "From the Island," another set of original songs.

His newest album, released in spring 2011, is called "1896," recorded simply with his voice and an 1896 Washburn parlor guitar in a Bainbridge Island schoolhouse that was also built in 1896.

Green is a distinguished bassist with the Seattle Symphony, active as well in chamber-music and new-music circles.